Prince’s sunny six string
Prince cloud
The last time I saw his purple badass was on the Piano & A Microphone Tour. It was amazing. Prince interpreting classics and rarities with just a piano and no backing band. Sadly, it was made all the more special with his passing. But still, it did not match the times I saw him strap on an axe like his custom Prince Cloud. The man’s six-string voice was one of a kind.
Because Prince was so incredible at, well, you name it, his guitar playing didn’t get the attention it deserved. There were always so many other things to talk about. The posing nude on album covers, changing his name to a symbol, or sending out a formal request to others sitting in his row at the 1985 Grammys to not look at him. The list of eccentricities is longer than the sustain notes at the end of Purple Rain.
The album of the same name produced a high watermark of brilliance for the artist. It was also where we were introduced to the Cloud. The guitar was commissioned by Prince from a local Minneapolis luthier David Husain. Initially, only 4 of the rain makers were built.
The original Prince Clouds are all maple, body and neck, with Love Symbol fret markers.
Rarer than a Prince bootleg, few Clouds have been built, some more authentic than others. Clouds produced by Prince’s guitar tech, Zeke Clark, hang in Hard Rock Cafes, but many of these have never been played by the man they were built for. Which will only adds insult to injury after ingesting one of the chain’s burgers.
The featured Prince Cloud, however, is a Zeke Clark creation, which was strummed by The Artist from about 1988 to 2004. It also has the distinction of a Floyd Rose locking vibrato. This piece of hardware was added by Clark during a repair. Prince had broken the neck during a French TV broadcast. In all Zeke Clark built 24 Clouds for Prince.
Prince also commissioned Schecters Guitars to produce a larger batch of Clouds during his Hit and Run Tour. These official replicas were sold exclusively at his shows. Now on the odd chance that I have some beer money left over, I might think about picking up a t-shirt at a show, but a guitar? Those who did are smiling now.
If you’re in the market, the Prince Yellow Cloud is set for sale at Heritage Auctions on June 24. Along with the Floyd Rose vibrato, it features two EMG pick ups: a SA single-coil at the neck position and a humbucker in the bridge. Prince’s Spade Symbol adorns the frets. One of a kind, the bidding starts at a 30,000 bananas.